


Stanley Uris Takes a Bath with Richie Tozier Downstairs

by iamatheatrekid



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 27 years later, M/M, Suicide, You know what happens, mike calls them up, remember that one chapter, stan and richie are dating, this is literally the first thing ive posted and i dont know how to tag, yeah - Freeform, yep pennywise is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:52:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamatheatrekid/pseuds/iamatheatrekid
Summary: In which, Richie tries to save his boyfriend after getting an unexpected call from Mike Hanlon who didn't know the two were dating.And I'm sorry.





	Stanley Uris Takes a Bath with Richie Tozier Downstairs

The sun had set in Atlanta and the television was the only thing illuminating Richie Tozier’s face when the telephone rang. Stan was sitting in his armchair beside a lamp to read a newspaper since Richie’s long body took up the entire couch when he was really tired. Stan had grown to be only 5’ 10”, something Richie constantly teased him about. He looked like he would be tall but when his 6’ 2” boyfriend stood up beside him, he looked really short. 

Richie’s belt was retired to the floor, his contacts out and glasses on, and his shirt was untucked whereas Stan was still in his work clothes, as he normally was until bed, so he didn’t want to break Richie’s relaxation by making him answer the phone in the kitchen. Stan folded the newspaper on his way to the phone, Richie calling out, “Thanks babe!”, and picked up the receiver with a smile on his face. A smile that Richie could pull out of him whenever he spoke.

“Stanley Uris,” Stan said to the unknown caller. 

“Stan? This is Mike Hanlon.”

“Who?” Stan became more drawn into this conversation than he expected to be.

“Mike Hanlon.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! How are you?”  


Mike didn’t respond. He sounded tired. “It’s back, Stan.”

“What?”

“It. It’s back.”

Stan’s mouth formed an “o” but no sound came out of his mouth. “Will you come?”

Stan didn’t respond again.    
“Stan?”

“Well, no, I-I can’t.” Stan laughed out of nerves.

“You have to. You promised.”

“I…I know, I know, I just-”

“Please come.”

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

And then he hung up the phone on the old friend. 

Stan stood in the kitchen for a while, his hand still on the phone. He had started to rock back and forth without even realizing it. He walked back into the living room, the television suddenly being too bright. The action scene in front of him hypnotized him. “I think I’ll take a bath,” he said to Richie, not looking at him, but staring into the screen. 

“What?” Richie knew, he knew, that Stan didn’t take baths so early in the night. So he turned to look at him, he thought Stan had lost his mind, and he looked like he had. His eyes didn’t have anything inside of them as he stared into the television. “Who was on the phone?” 

“No one really.”

Then Stan turned and went upstairs.

_It must’ve been a business call,_ Richie thought. _He’s just stressed and needs some quiet time. He’s tired._

The faucet started running the moment the bathroom door closed. The sound was eventually drowned out by the television and Richie stopped focusing on it. Although, he was only able to get sucked in for a few minutes before the phone rang again. This time Richie did have to get up to answer it and he sighed the entire way. He picked up the phone and said, “Hello,” as he started to walk down the hallway to the living room in order to watch his show. 

“Richie? This is Mike Hanlon.” The caller said.

Mike had done a good job at keeping up with where all his friends went after they left Derry, he knew their addresses, careers, and phone numbers, but he didn’t know about Richie and Stan’s relationship. No one really did. They had done a great job keeping it a secret, only close friends knew, not even their family. Richie hadn’t seen his parents in a few years and they figured he was just sleeping with different people each night while Stan’s parents knew he was gay and took a long time to actually get over it and Donald would probably have a heart attack if Stan took Richie home for Thanksgiving. And he didn’t even realize that he had the same home number down for both Stan and Richie.

Richie’s eyes stopped focusing on the show and he turned away from it, like it was distracting him from the conversation. “Mike?”

“Yes. It’s back.”

“It is?” Possibly his worst nightmare. Or what he thought was his worst nightmare.

“How much do you remember, Rich?” Mike asked him.

Nothing really came back to him. He knew him and his friends defeated something that summer years and years ago. But what? “Very little. Enough, I suppose.”

“Will you come?”

“I’ll come,” Richie said, and hung up, walking all the way back to the kitchen to do so. He felt sick. The television was too loud and he went and turned it off. He turned on the light in the living room. The faucet had stopped running. Stan was in the bath. Richie didn’t want to disturb him, the bath was not the place to go and bother him. He walked back to the kitchen with his mind racing. _Would Stan want to go?_

He thought about work and about Stan. He saw William Denbrough’s latest book sitting on the kitchen counter. Stan had seen it at the store and picked it up a few days prior. Richie really felt sick. He took off his glasses and got a glass of water. Was he sweating? 

When he put his glasses back on, he saw Stan’s newspaper sitting on beside the phone, folded, just as he left it. He wondered who Stan had been talking to on the phone, he wished he had been listening. He knew either way, Stan would’ve brought something to read in the bath. 

Richie grabbed the newspaper and climbed the stairs. “Stanley?” He called once he reached the top. He didn’t want to go into the bathroom. He didn’t remember what the two did as kids but he remembered Stanley waking up from nightmares screaming and crying. He remembered holding him tightly and sleeping with the lights on. He remembered seeing him shaking and unable to talk for periods of time. He was terrified of It, whatever It was. And he still had nightmares and woke up in cold sweats. Whenever the feeling of fear washes over him.

The door to the bathroom was closed and Richie knocked on it. “Stanley?” He called again. No response. He knocked again. When Stan didn’t answer him, he went to open the door. Locked. Locked?

His heart stopped. “Stan!” He now yelled, banging on the door. “Stanley!” For moments, Richie forgot how to pick locks. He stood there pushing on the door and and yelling for Stan to “Please open the door!” until he remembered that all it took was a little hair pin that they had in their bedroom to tame both of the boys’ crazy hair. 

His blurring vision out of worry tortured him as he looked for a pin. They should be on the dresser, but they weren’t there. Things were pushed onto the ground, knocked over as Richie plowed through the room to find a pin, the newspaper still in hand. Once he found one, he ran back to the bathroom and took a second to calm his shaking hands before picking the lock and pushing the door open.

Stanley had run the water too hot for it to be comfortable and let it fill up while he slowly took off his tie, unbutton his shirt, peeled off his pants, and folded each article on the ground. He saw Richie’s razor sitting on the counter and looked in the cabinets to find the box.

Richie found him inside of the bath with no clothes on, the body that he loved, covered in blood. He has cut his wrists, cut down his entire forearm, deep, and written on the tiled wall “IT” in his own blood.

He screamed. The newspaper was discarded. He fell to his knees. He crawled over to the other man’s body crying “Stan! Stanley!” but he was dead. He grabbed a towel, Stan left a towel out for himself, folded up on the counter, like he always had, and wrapped it around the nearest arm. He panicked. The towel was turning red and the other arm was still bleeding. Stan’s brown eyes were open and staring at him. “No. No, no, no.” He said, cupping his hand around Stan’s face and looking at the lifeless eyes. He found another towel and wrapped it around the other arm before running down the stairs back to the phone. He was tripping over his feet with tears running down his face.

He was dead.    
Stanley was announced as dead by suicide.

He had always been suicidal, even as a kid. He told Richie about it. He told him how much he hated himself in high school. Richie didn’t think it would be a problem anymore. His love was enough. But it wasn’t. It was back and killed him.

Richie forgot that he had even told Mike that he was going to go to Derry. He had forgotten until the next night when he sat in Stan’s armchair, not how he used to sit in it with perfect posture and a calm feeling, but slumped over with his head in his hands. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, he had been staring at a blurry world and he was wearing the same shirt. That night the phone rang. It had rang a few times that day, friends calling about the headline in the paper, and each time he answered with the same small voice. He ran out of tears and was now just numb. He went to the phone, picking it up and answering with his small, “Hello?”

Mike Hanlon didn’t recognize the voice. “Hi, is Stan Uris there?”

Richie recognized the voice. “Mike?”  


“Yes, who is this?”

“Richie.”

“Richie? Is Stan with you?”

The line was quiet. “Are you guys coming?” Mike asked. 

“Stan’s dead.”

Now Mike was speechless. “What?”

“He killed himself last night. Slit his wrists.”

Mike sat down. The others turned their heads to a completely different Mike than the one they were just joking with. “My God,” he breathed. 

“I can’t come. The funeral-,” his voice cracked.

“No, of course, of course. Everyone else is here. Is there anything we can do? Do you want us to come down there?”

“No, stay there,” Richie said. “Kick It’s ass.”


End file.
